Europe’s copyright cop-out; Politico, 9/1/16

Chris Spillane and Axex Spence, Politico; Europe’s copyright cop-out:

"Fifteen years of bitter battles between old media and disruptive digital upstarts over copyright have led the European Commission’s long-awaited reforms of the system down a blind alley.

Instead of a coherent vision that produces winners and losers, the draft proposals on the so-called copyright directive fudge crucial questions about how artists can earn money in the digital age, and whether generations of internet users can avoid committing a crime for unwittingly accessing protected intellectual property...

Streamlining and modernizing a patchwork of copyright laws is a cornerstone of the Commission’s digital single market strategy, which aims to pump €415 billion into Europe’s economy annually by breaking digital barriers across the EU. A final version of the proposal is due to be proposed by the Commission on September 21, and then goes to the European Parliament and EU states for approval, which will likely be highly contentious."

Do patent and copyright law restrict competition and creativity excessively? Posner; Becker-Posner Blog, 9/30/12

Becker-Posner Blog; Do patent and copyright law restrict competition and creativity excessively? Posner: "The most serious problem with copyright law is the length of copyright protection, which for most works is now from the creation of the work to 70 years after the author’s death. Apart from the fact that the present value of income received so far in the future is negligible, obtaining copyright licenses on very old works is difficult because not only is the author in all likelihood dead, but his heirs or other owners of the copyright may be difficult or even impossible to identify or find. The copyright term should be shorter."